Quote (bogie160 @ 1 Nov 2022 06:01)
It's well documented that the United States rebuffed the British repeatedly, and had no interest intervening militarily in a British-Iranian dispute. You're conflating two very different interests as one, which is the pitfall of any understanding which rests on a dichotomy between "imperialist" and "non-imperialist" powers. It's a Marxian way of looking at things which simply doesn't exist.
On the other hand, as Mossadegh's regime careened towards collapse, the likelihood of a communist takeover increased exponentially. China had already fallen, and the prospect at the time was Soviet dominance over Eurasia. So how should the United States have dealt with the situation? Map it out for me, and illustrate the drawbacks and expected outcomes. If your answer is that no state can ever intervene in another's affairs, even as their opponents do, then you're too stupid to take part in this conversation. I apologize if that comes across as harsh.
Mossadegh's fall in any case says far more about the state of Iran than it does the outside world. He called short elections, before rural votes had been fully counted, because he understood how shallow his support there truly was. The royalists and pro-British business class had tangible support. He could and should have compromised with the royalists, resolved the British dispute via compromise, and in turn he might have brought Iran into the modern age. But he was too small a man for the moment, misplayed his hand, and lost the government to competing factions. It was a prelude to what happened with the fall of the Shah. The moderates were outflanked by a powerful religious rural class on one side, and conservatives and business interests on the other. They lost a game of power politics between powerful factions within Iranian society. The "imperialists" acted because the opportunity was ripe and the risk of failure far too great.
see that's the problem with jingoists: i already told you that i understand the realpolitik behind it, but that i reject the transparent attempts to somehow downplay or justify the exploitation of iranian resources by foreign powers.
the idiotic suggestion that in order to criticise the coup d'etat, i'd have to map out a concrete plan for iran's political future in 1953, while also accepting your premise that the US would have to have been content with it, is simply absurd - especially when we have the benefit of hindsight, and know what happened in the middle east in the following decades, with the US arming factions, fighting proxy wars, invading countries, and toppling regimes, playing a huge role in plunging the whole region into chaos, for largely the same (although of course not the sole) reason. it perfectly illustrates what hoops you're willing to jump through in order to rationalise imperialist narratives.
none of that is necessary to realise that
the mossadegh administration was overthrown by western (UK & US) forces, because he had the audacity to nationalise iran's oil industry. that's neither a secret nor contested, it's simply a historical fact. no amount of revisionist deflection, and pointing to domestic opposition (at least in part paid for by the US, a fact you conveniently keep ignoring, while harping on about how he struggled politically:
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/ ) will magically change that. would he have had a bright and long political future otherwise? questionable, speculative, and most importantly: irrelevant - because his administration was overthrown by western powers, and he was replaced by a puppet in order to grant those powers access to iranian oil.
maybe you simply forgot, or didn't quite understand how we arrived here in the first place: i was replying to someone who suggested that overthrowing a foreign installed government, which is exploiting a country's natural resources, would inevitably lead to religious fundamentalists setting up a terror regime, and therefore the iranian people were simply too shortsighted and idealistic in opposing their western exploiters, and ultimately to blame for their misery. in reality, those were far from the only two thinkable options, as their democratically elected former prime minister, mohammad mossadegh, had shown previously. just because it turned out this way doesn't magically absolve the west from the injustice of stealing iranian's resources and overthrowing their democratically elected leader - just as the western coup itself does not absolve iranian fundamentalists from their guilt in brutally oppressing their own people.
let me make this a bit easier to understand for someone obviously afflicted by western arrogance and a fundamentally colonial mindset: if the US government were to be replaced by chinese puppets, and the country exploited for its resources, i am sure you'd make a temporary uncomfortable alliance with a group you generally disagree with, if it meant getting rid of those forces, wouldn't you?
it's really not such a difficult concept, so it's a bit of a shame that you seem to be "too stupid" (i apologise if that comes across as harsh) to understand it: just because history has turned out a certain way does not mean it was basically inevitable or perfectly predictable. those who commit injustices can not be absolved by retroactively pretending they surely were the lesser evil (who knows how the pahlavi dynasty would have continued? they weren't exactly squeamish in '79), based on speculation and the dumb jingoist inclination to justify whatever one's own country did in the past.